It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1966), British author. The Moon and Sixpence, ch. 17 (1919).
Nearly twenty years later, Maugham used almost identical words to describe the suffering he witnessed as a medical student, in The Summing Up, ch. 19 (1938).